As the number of channels available to television viewers has increased, along with the diversity of the programming content available on such channels, it has become increasingly challenging for television viewers to identify television programs of interest. Historically, television viewers identified television programs of interest by analyzing printed television program guides. Typically, such printed television program guides contained grids listing the available television programs by time and date, channel and title. As the number of television programs has increased, it has become increasingly difficult to effectively identify desirable television programs using such printed guides.
More recently, television program guides have become available in an electronic format, often referred to as electronic program guides (EPGs). Like printed television program guides, EPGs contain grids listing the available television programs by time and date, channel and title. Some EPGs, however, allow television viewers to sort or search the available television programs in accordance with personalized preferences. In addition, EPGs allow for on-screen presentation of the available television programs.
While EPGs allow viewers to identify desirable programs more efficiently than conventional printed guides, they suffer from a number of limitations, which if overcome, could further enhance the ability of viewers to identify desirable programs. For example, many viewers have a particular preference towards, or bias against, certain categories of programming, such as action-based programs or sports programming. Thus, the viewer preferences can be applied to the EPG to obtain a set of recommended programs that may be of interest to a particular viewer.
Thus, a number of tools have been proposed or suggested for recommending television programming. The TiVO™ system, for example, commercially available from Tivo, Inc., of Sunnyvale, Calif., allows viewers to rate shows using a “Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down” feature and thereby indicate programs that the viewer likes and dislikes, respectively. Thereafter, the TiVo receiver matches the recorded viewer preferences with received program data, such as an EPG, to make recommendations tailored to each viewer.
Implicit television program recommenders generate television program recommendations based on information derived from the viewing history of the viewer, in a non-obtrusive manner. FIG. 1 illustrates the generation of a viewer profile 240 using a conventional implicit television program recommender 160. The implicit viewer profile 140 is derived from a viewing history 125, indicating whether or not a given viewer watched each program. As shown in FIG. 1, the implicit television program recommender 160 processes the viewing history 225, in a known manner, to derive an implicit viewer profile 140 containing a set of inferred rules that characterize the preferences of the viewer. Thus, an implicit television program recommender 160 attempts to derive the viewing habits of the viewer based on the set of programs that the viewer watched or did not watch.
Explicit television program recommenders, on the other hand, explicitly question viewers about their preferences for program features, such as title, genre, actors, channel and date/time, to derive viewer profiles and generate recommendations. FIG. 2 illustrates the generation of a viewer profile 240 using a conventional explicit television program recommender 260. The explicit viewer profile 240 is generated from a viewer survey 225 that provides a rating for each program feature, for example, on a numerical scale that is mapped to various levels of interest between “hates” and “loves,” indicating whether or not a given viewer watched each program feature. As shown in FIG. 2, the explicit television program recommender 260 processes the viewer survey 225, in a known manner, to generate an explicit viewer profile 240 containing a set of rules that implement the preferences of the viewer.
While such television program recommenders identify programs that are likely of interest to a given viewer, they suffer from a number of limitations, which if overcome, could further improve the quality of the generated program recommendations. For example, explicit television program recommenders typically do not adapt to the evolving preferences of a viewer. Rather, the generated program recommendations are based on the static survey responses. In addition, to be comprehensive, explicit television program recommenders require each user to respond to a very detailed survey. For example, assuming there are 180 different possible values for the “genre” feature, and the user merely specifies his or her “favorite five genres,” then no information is obtained about the user's preferences for the other 175 possible genres. Similarly, implicit television program recommenders often make improper assumptions about the viewing habits of a viewer that could have easily been identified explicitly by the viewer.
A need therefore exists for a method and apparatus for updating the user profiles that are utilized to generate the recommendations.